Time for the zine to focus for a while on Greek cinema, with a mini-special on director Alexis Alexiou, whom I've known personally from when I was a university student in Athens and I have been following his work since then, but decided it was the right time to do a special on his films. What follows are reviews for three of his films (one short film and two regular features) and an interview that was taken in the summer of 2017 in Athens.
TUGO TUGO (Greece-1998)
This was the first short film of Tugo Tugo Productions (the independent company of Alexiou and his colleagues), shot on black and white 16mm film and a running time of 14 minutes. It is actually an experimental sci-fi allegory which impressed me a lot from the first time I saw it and it is unique if viewed within the tiny genre of Greek fantastic films. The story is kind of abstract and unfolds as a Kafka-esque metaphor, using bizarre imagery and a visual aesthetic not far from that of the early
works of David Lynch and Shinya Tsukamoto and it also includes several cyberpunk influences. I should note that the editing did another old friend of mine, Labros Skarlas (who, as the rest of the Tugo Tugo team, was in the creative generation that came out of Stavrakos filmmaking school), who gave me a VHS copy of the film when I was in university and had just started to meet like-minded people in the film club of the university of Athens (named Iris). This is one of the best Greek short films I have ever seen and showcases a lot of talent as well as love for the sci-fi genre.
TALE 52 (Greece-2008)
Alexiou teamed up again with Yannis Veslemes (who also writes the soundtrack of the film, with his musical project Felizol) and this time on feature film format. The story finds a man who happens to fall in love with a girl, but soon the hero is lost in a labyrinth of paranoia, that causes him to lose the girl. He tries to change the chain of events of how they met but there is no happy ending. The story and the aesthetic of this film follow the structure of a psychological thriller (which means we don't know if what we see is reality or if it's all in the hero's head) and it combines the urban paranoia of early Polanski with the nightmarish visuals of early David Lynch and the hallucinatory outbursts of JACOB'S LADDER. The cast didn't impress me with their acting (at least, George Kakanakis, who plays the troubled protagonist, has the morbid look that fits the hero perfectly well), but the story unfolds in a clever way and comes to an end in a finale that is open to several explanations.
Furthermore, direction, photography and editing showcase an obvious improvement and maturity compared to TUGO TUGO and the excellent soundtrack fits the atmosphere of the film perfectly. As it's the case with KINETTA from now acclaimed Greek filmmaker George Lanthimos (also his feature film debut and this film along with TALE 52 could fit in the genre of 'weird wave'), it's not a perfect debut but it shows signs of improvement for Alexiou, since he shoots his material in a low budget but in a more experienced way and here we can see elements that would be perfected in his next feature film, WEDNESDAY 04:45. As an extra note, the movie includes two sequences of nightmarish delusions and we have some practical make up effects (done by the acclaimed Alachouzos brothers), plus there is a murder of a female victim that has an almost giallo flavor.
WEDNESDAY 04:45 (Greece/Germany/Israel-2015)
This is Alexiou's second feature film and the perfection of his craft shines through, The story finds a jazz club owner in Athens who comes to a dead end, because he owes a lot of money to a Romanian gangster, thanks to the an old friend of the protagonist, who is still involved in the criminal underground. The only solution for the hero is to give the bar to the gangster, but this will ruin his life (he already has a bad relationship with his wife), so he decides to resort to a violent solution to his problem and the ending is emotionally charged and drenched in blood.
I partly agree with the opinion of several people that the movie reminds Hong Kong noir thrillers, but personally I think it's like a homage to gangster films from Hong Kong (especially the heroic bloodshed classics of John Woo, the noir thrillers of Johnnie To and the experimenta new wave approach of Wong Kar Wai), with equal references to Korean gangster cinema. These influences are
evident in the story as well as the directorial style, since the movie is shot mostly at night and with the use of neon lighting, plus we have outbursts of violence and the cathartic use of rain in the final act. The story is nice, it unfolds in a clever way until the final act and it also gives a solid background to the central hero, which leads him to his violent outburst. Acclaimed Greek actor Stelios Mainas is excellent in the main role (now that he is older, he kinds of reminds me of Jean Rennau) and Dimitris Tzoumakis is also a joy to watch. I would not say the same for the rest of the cast, who didn't seem to me as convincing or cheerful. The action scenes are bloody and violent and the movie also has nudity, so there are two essential elements of gangster thrillers, but my only complaint is that Athens doesn't look beautiful on screen (in contrast to Hong Kong or Seoul) and remains an ugly and charmless capital city, despite the efforts of Alexiou and his cinematographer to transform it. On a technical level, the movie is perfect, showcasing production standards and technical skills far ahead of other modern Greek films and the director shows great skill behind the camera. I should also note that he loves the gangster thriller genre and he didn't make this movie by accident or to make money.
Therefore, it is surely worth to watch and it was screened in several film festivals (Trieste in Italy, Tribeca in USA, as well as the UK and South Korea), while it was shown on German cinemas and released on German DVD as MITTWOCH 04:45. It took nine awards from the Greek Film Academy in 2016, including best film, direction, photography, editing, main role for Stelios Mainas, production design, sound design, music and special effects. I hope Alexiou will continue his work in the genres that he loves and without compromise, although the situation with films in Greece is full of problems, as you will also read in the interview that follows.
INTERVIEW :
The interview was done at a cafe in Eksarcheia square, with Alexis Alexiou (here I should also thank him for his help with plenty of photo material), Aris Pull (editor of SHOCK) and zine contributor Flora Prefa, who arranged the meeting and whose help was of great importance. My questions are with the initials AP and Flora's with FP and this is a transcript of something that came out between an interview and a friendly talk among friends and film buffs.
AP: Let's start with the story of Tugo Tugo productions and the short films you made during that early period.
Everything started in Stavrakos School in 1997, where a group of friends and classmates made our first short film, TUGO TUGO. We were a team of four people, who wrote and directed the film together. Yannis Veslemes (later the director of NORWAY) was in this team, as well as Napoleon Stratogiannakis (who now lives and works in England as an editor) and Vagelis Mylonas.
AP: I have seen TUGO TUGO and I really liked it. How did you come out with the idea for this short?
If I remember well, it was Yannis' idea. Then we all wrote and directed it together and we also funded it, with whatever savings we had. What I remember clearly is that the shooting lasted for a whole year. We didn't have enough money, we didn't have any idea how films were made and we were not organized at all. We shot the movie on black and white 16mm film and we made a lot of mistakes, which we would see in the editing process and then go back and shoot the scenes again...
FP: What about the title of the film? Wasn't it from a song?
Yes, it's from a song with the same name, which is also heard in the movie. It's a Greek bossa nova song from the 40's that Yannis had discovered.
AP: The soundtrack of WEDNESDAY 04:45 also includes several retro songs. Did you find these songs?
Yes, I found them, although several friends helped with their recommendations, like Vasilis Dimotroulias from PIRANHA (ed.note : he is the editor of PIRANHA, another Greek zine, that focuses on retro films and especially Eurotrash cinema), who recommended Kleio Denardou, whom he really loves. Some other songs I wanted to use either didn't end up in the movie or we couldn't obtain the rights for them. But I admit that several of these wonderful songs I didn't know before.
FP:Do you know why? You haven't seen enough old Greek films. Songs like this were in classic movies with Kostas Voutsas.
AP: You followed TUGO TUGO with three more short films, so can you tell us about them in terms of story and style?
After TUGO TUGO came an informal trilogy of childhood memories, with the basic theme of adulthood or rather the failure to achieve adulthood. These were KLARK KENT IS SUPERMAN!, YOU REMEMBER ME and ARISTIDES O ALOPEKAS. Their heroes are three men who try to grow up and fail miserably. They are three films that each is different from the other, but they were all shot on film format. KLAR KENT was shot on Super 8, with which I experimented a lot during that period, since it wasn't easy to find camera equipment and film. My dad had a Super 8 camera and I bought two or three more in small shops or antique shops. We were buying film from abroad and sending it to be developed in some old Kodac lab in Switzerland. Now all these have disappeared and I think it's almost impossible to find film stock. That time however it was still easy and cheap. The whole experience of shooting, handling the lighting and working alone on Super 8 was like a school for us.
AP:Were these shorts also independent, meaning all the money was from you?
KLARK KENT yes, we funded ourselves. For the other two we got some money from the Greek Cinema Center and ERT (ed.note:public Television). YOU REMEMBER ME was in mixed format. Some parts were on Super 8 and some on Super 16. ARISTIDES O ALOPEKAS was shot entirely on 35mm. The protagonist is Panagiotis Thanasoulis, an actor we all admired in Nikolaides' SINGAPORE SLING. In KLARK KENT all the actors were amateurs and friends who were not actors. It plays like a child's diary and it was shot in several segments. A big part of it was shot in my old neighborhood and a lot of my childhood friends play in it. The cast of YOU REMEMBER me is mixed, as it includes professional actors as well as personal friends.
FP: The protagonist of YOU REMEMBER ME was a very nice movie presence. Didn't he die recently?
Yes, you are right. Kostas Staridas, who became known from the film APONTES by Nikos Grammatikos. He was a very talented actor who unfortunately died recently and at a young age. Where did you hear about it? Few people know that.
AP: Let's go to your first film feature, which was TALE 52 and came out in 2008. How did everything lead there?
I wanted to make a cheap feature film, so I thought of keeping the shooting locations to a minimum and decided to do it in an apartment. During that time (the shooting began in 2006) it was very hard for a newcomer director to find money. Not that it is easy now, but with the financing system of that time it was almost impossible. We knew that we had to make the movie with whatever money we had available, so we had to keep a very low budget.
AP: Thematically speaking, was it a continuation of your short films?
In a way it was, because this movie also was the story of a man unable to accept adulthood. But this time the price for his failure is his alienation and his entrapment in the apartment as well as the labyrinth of his mind. What is evidently different here is the tone, because it uses the form of a psychological thriller. Without considering it a thriller, it borrows several elements from that genre.
AP: In terms of distribution, what did you achieve with that movie? Was it also screened at any festivals?
It premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival in the winter of 2008 and it did quite well, since it played in more than thirty international film festivals. That was a time that Greek cinema didn't break outside the borders of the country, so this was one of the movies that helped the stream of Greek 'festival' films that followed. However, it was not our intention to make a film designated for festivals. Personally, when we made the movie I had no idea what this whole festival thing was. What I had in mind was to do something different from what was done in the country until then.
FP : Therefore, historically, that film was one of the first examples of Greek 'weird wave'. That one as well as Lanthimos' KINETTA, despite the fact that the term weird wave had not yet been invented.
I wouldn't exactly put my film in that genre, because weird wave as a term mostly defines the cinema of Lanthimos, Tsagari and the whole team which revolves around screenwriter Efthimis Filippou.
FP : This is relevant, because in the same way you can't define the term 'cult', but if a film historian had to record the Greek weird wave movement, its beginning was more or less there.
Maybe it's the timing, because during that same time came out some films that were made with little money but managed to break through the country's borders. In each case that was unintentional, whereas today it may be the main reason for the movie to be done, that is to be played at festivals. On the other hand, what else would a film do in a country that filmgoers are so few?
FP: How about the tickets sales of TALE 52 at the Greek cinemas?
Around two thousand, more or less, since I don't have a clear picture. Proportionally, these tickets at that time were good, since there were other movies in that period that made from one hundred to five hundred tickets, so at least we surpassed them! It did quite well on DVD, because at that time there still was a strong DVD market. I guess most people saw it in the video stores.
AP : Anything else you can tell us about the movie?
The movie is made entirely in one apartment, where the hero is trapped and he is played by George Kakanakis. George was a director with experience in Greek experimental-avantgarde theater. I think this is the only movie he has played in, at least as a main lead. His co-lead is Serafita Grigoriadou. The rest of the team were Chris Karamanis as the cameraman (we also worked together on WEDNESDAY 04:45), stage design was by Penelope Valti, costumes by Kiki Karabela and editing by Panos Voutsaras. The shooting process was a difficult experience, It is difficult to make a movie in such a closed space, because there is no change of scenery and that affects your psychology. In the end, the whole film crew followed the hero and started to show similar symptoms of incarceration...
AP : How did you achieve the special effects sequence where we see the hero's head deforming?
This particular effect was done by the Alachouzos brothers. We had in mind a similar effects scene from Ken Russel's ALTERED STATES (ed.note:see review of this film in Shock#32). It was a simple construction, but needed a certain mastery of the craft. It is a small balloon integrated in the skin with the use of latex and then they blow it with a hidden tube.
AP : Was the cost for the special effects high? I am asking that because I know many independent filmmakers avoid practical effects, as they can sometimes cost half the budget of the movie.
The cost wasn't that great.I think a lot of people avoid practical effects because there's a lack of know-how, especially in Greece, so most directors are afraid of them. But if and when you go through the process of looking into it, there are cheap and satisfying ways to do it. The Alachouzos brothers have dedicated their lives to traditional make-up effects.
AP : there is also the scene with the murder of a woman in the film and it reminded me of Argento, since it was quite brutal and with a touch of misogyny.
I hadn't thought of it a giallo murder. The idea of killing someone with wrap film for food is actually very funny.
AP : What are your impressions from the film festivals you attended thanks to TALE 52?
The movie traveled a lot and I traveled with it. Many people considered it a film in the fantastic genre, so it played in many fantastic festivals, such as the one Brussels, PIFAN in South Korea, Sitges in Spain, as well as Shanghai. WEDNESDAY 04:45 was also screened in Korea. I think Koreans like my movies. I don't know why.
AP : It is evident that WEDNESDAY 04:45 has a good budget. Did you get that from people you met at festivals or from any other sources?
The fact that the first movie went well helped to make the second movie, although there was a gap of several years between them. However, this is because of other factors, that are related to the financial conditions of our country.
FP: How did Germany step in as a financer?
Thanasis Karathanos, the main producer of WEDNESDAY 04:45, is Greek but working and living in Germany, so practically he is a German producer. I had met him at a festival and we met again in Berlin, when I was there for a few months with a scholarship. He was interested and he said we should start making the movie. He gave the project to a French-German channel, ZDF/Arte, they were immediately interested, so we found the first money. But we were stuck because of Greece. That was the time when the crisis hit the country hard and we entered the first economic memorandum, so it took us almost three years to find the rest of the money to finish the movie.
AP: How did Israel join the production? That sounds even more unusual.
It is unusual indeed and as far as I know there had never been a co-production between Greece and Israel until then. Moreover, that wasn't possible, because there wasn't any official agreement between the two countries. For such a co-production, there must be a kind of official agreement, in order to resolve a number of bureaucratic issues. At some point, while we were looking for funding, we found ourselves trapped in a maelstrom. The money we were supposed to have from Greece one day was there and another day it wasn't. Some money that we had from ERT suddenly disappeared, since just before we started shooting (or during the shooting-I don't remember), ERT closed. Then it was Thanasis' idea to make up for the loss by making an application to Israel, where he knew people, as he had done some co-productions with them before. Our co-producers there read the script and they really liked it, so they applied for it at their own Film Center. To everyone's surprise, although the movie had nothing to do with Israel (I mean in terms of the story), the project was approved. I don't know why, maybe it's the legacy of Cannon Films!
AP: The movie looks artistically perfect and I would dare to say that technically it's the best modern Greek movie I have seen. How did it come out so well-done? Was it because of a better budget or because you and your team matured artistically?
The main difference was that, contrary to before, we had a proper budget. Our goal was to make a movie where we would have enough money to pay everyone involved in it, something that doesn't often happen in Greece.
AP : How did Stelios Mainas become your main actor?
Mainas was one of the first people I had in mind when the screenplay started to take shape. I called him without knowing him from before and he impressed me from the first time we met and had coffee together. I mean he was really positive to read the script and also watch my previous movie. He likes cinema a lot, although he hadn't played in a movie for several years and that was his own choice. He also likes gangster and noir movies and I think he felt glad that someone asked him to play the anti-hero in such a movie.
AP : Can you give us some more information about the technical aspects of the movie, meaning direction, editing etc?
Actually, the movie wasn't as expensive as it looks and the fact that you mentioned, that it looks well done, has to do with our hard work on pre-production, together with our director of photography (Chris Karamanis) and our set designer (Spyros Laskaris). We did a very meticulous location scouting and we planned eveything on storyboards months ahead (our storyboard artist was George Tasioulas). The editing with George Charalambidis also kept us busy for several months, as well as the final image and sound processing.
AP : How long was the duration of pre-production and shooting?
Pre-production lasted about a year, including location scouting, casting and storyboards, which require a lot of time. It was time-consuming, but in the end it helped us save money and also made the movie look more expensive that it actually was. The shooting began in the spring of 2013 and finished after two intermissions. The first one was because of Easter holidays and the second one because of an accident Stelios Mainas had. He got hurt in the scene at the rooftop in the end of the film and got injured. Luckily, it was a light injury, but we had to stop.
FP : Was there a team of stuntmen who helped you with these scenes?
Not exactly. We got help from Chris Radanov, an actor from Bulgaria, who has been living and working in Greece for years and he is involved in martial arts. In the recent years, he has set up a team of people who handle dangerous stunts. Chris helped us a lot with scenes where we had people falling down. He showed the actors how to react when they get hit by bullets and how to fall without hurting themselves, in the meantime hiding from the camera mattresses or protective gear under the clothes. This is a part that requires a lot of work and it's not as easy as it looks onscreen.
AP : There are some scenes involving blood in the movie, so what did you do with the effects? Did you use the Alachouzos brothers or did you have another choice?
A part of the effects were done by the Alachouzos brothers. The shootings and especially those involving blood capsules, bullets hitting bodies etc were handled by Michael Samiotis.
FP : Is Samiotis still alive?
It's his son. Dionysis Samiotis was the old one you remember and Michael is his son. He is what is called an armorer. He is specialized in guns, explosions, fires etc. He also handled the scenes with the rain in the movie and the effect in the final part with the burning tree. This particular effect was a combination of practical effects (on location we set up a massive mechanism with a flaming propane) and with the help of digital effects (this particular scene was digitally processed in Israel) it was transformed into a burning tree. Because we were shooting that scene at night, it was important to have a real fire on set, serving as the key light for that scene.
AP : Was that the first time you worked with digital effects?
Actually, our previous short ALOPEKAS also had some digital effects.
FP : Tell us about the cult actors who also play in this movie. I mean Tzoumakis and Bousdoukos.
Mainas' co-lead is Dimitris Tzoumakis, a pivotal actor who has played amazing B'roles in Greek movies and he is a fantastic actor whom I remember from my childhood (from MONDAY'S THEATER). He was my first choice for that role and an actor I always wanted to work with.
FP : How did you approach him?
He is a very simple and every-day person. He read the script, he liked it and he identified himself with the role of Vasos, who is a simple and every-day gangster. Tzoumakis is a delightful and exuberant man, just as he is in his roles. It is a great experience to talk and work with him. Another key role in the film belongs to Adam Bousdoukos. This was the first Greek movie he made. His parents are Greek but he grew up in Germany. He is very famous from Fatih Akin's movies, with whom he has worked as an actor and co-screenwriter. He was the main actor of SOUL KITCHEN. Adam was a reccomendation by Thanasis Karathanos, our producer. The idea immediately seemed right to me and I adapted the role to fit him. I had met Adam when he came to a film festival here (Athens Film Festival) to play music along with Fatih Akin. He impressed me and he really wanted to play in a Greek film, so he fit in the project very well.
AP : On what format was WEDNESDAY 04:45 shot?
It was the first time I shot a movie digitally. Digital cameras change and evolve constantly. Today they have reached a level almost similar to that of film. They aren't what they used to be before, a cheap compromise to make a movie. Digital technology has advanced so much and offers new ways and new aesthetic choices to filmmakers. For example, digital cameras have a high photo-sensitivity and help you a lot to shot at night with minimal lighting, something that helps the sense of realism. We shot the movie with a Red Epic, a camera with a small size, and that helped us so much with scenes in confined spaces, such as inside elevators or inside cars...
FP : A more technical question I have is if the work of the cinematographer today is done only during the shooting or it is also needed in the processing of the material, which is digital?
It needs both, as it has always been the case. There is no dramatic change to that, because one part is his job during shooting, which is very important, because the light must be the right one for each scene. If during shooting your scene doesn't have the right look and atmosphere, unfortunately you can't add them digitally. No matter how much you play with your material during post-production, you go nowhere if you don't have a good raw material.
FP : In WEDNESDAY 04:45, how much of the movie is due to the shooting process and how much to the final processing?
The interesting thing about digital technology is that you can be totally in control of your images on the set. When you're working with film everything is relevant. The great difference of digital format is that what you shoot that moment you can see it on your monitor right away, whereas with film you more or less imagine how it will be. To explain it in other words, the human eye looks in a certain way and a film camera looks in a different way and you must wait for the material you shoot to be developed (they are called 'dailies') a few days later, in order to see if you made any mistakes. With digital cameras you can have absolute control over the result, because what you see that time is what you get in the end. Therefore, a big percentage of the movie existed during shooting, with a certain image and a certain light in each scene. What we did afterwards was just to fix some imperfections, for example with some practical effects (rain, gunfights etc). In certain night scenes, in order to give lighting to big spaces, we had to bring the light sources in the frame and then have them digitally erased. It sounds as a paradox, but it's interesting. You can bring the lights into the frame and then erase them, so you don't show the source but the effect of the light.
AP : Something that I couldn't help but notice (because of the usual exploitative content of our magazine) was the bold amount of nudity, violence and blood of the movie, especially if viewed in the framework of the rather tame Greek movies of today. How did that occur and did you have any doubts that if you pulled it to the edge you would have any trouble?
I obviously like violence in movies. And everyone of course likes nudity. The movie has some nude scenes, but they are not so many. Maybe at some point I would like to make a movie with more nudity or a movie with sex scenes.
AP : Was any problem for the girls of the cast to do these nude scenes?
Nude scenes aren't easy for any actor. The actors prefer to see a particular reason behind a nude scene, so that it has a reason to exist. If nudity has a functional position in the universe of a film and is integrated aesthetically, they have no issue. Regarding violence, officially there is no censorship in Greece and to be honest no one is particularly concerned with Greek films, so no one is going to tell you not to put violence or nudity in your movies. On the other hand, I admit that there were some objections or opinions from some potential Greek investors, who said that if the film has too much nudity or too much violence, it will not be able to play on TV's prime time zone. That is actually stupid and it has to do with how Greek TV or the Greek market are more conservative when it comes to Greek products, in contrast to American products. To give an example, our movie doesn't have more violence or nudity than an American gangster movie that can be played without any problems on prime time.
AP : I would also like to ask something else, regarding your influences, since in this movie I noticed influences from Hong Kong gangster cinema, some touches from Korean gangster thrillers (for example the scenes under the rain as well as the drama in the story). I should also note here that you are a film buff and I also know you like Asian movies, so how did you filter your love for these films in a movie that is not made in Asia and doesn't have an Asian cast, but has an almost Asian aesthetic?
What I had in mind was to make a movie that will have a dialogue with the wider tradition of a whole film genre, that of the film noir and also the modern gangster genre. And in my eyes this tradition is not only American. It's international. It's enough for someone to have a look at the Japanese movies of the 60's and 70's, movies from Hong Kong from the 80's and 90's, as well as contemporary Korean films. This tradition, which we can call film noir, crime film, crime drama or gangster film, is huge and I wanted my movie to combine elements from this whole tradition. So, there are elements from American film noir, since WEDNESDAY 04:45 has a clearly expressionistic aura, while the story reminds of the themes of American gangster films, like film noir films from the 40's and 50's up to THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE by John Cassavetes. There are also stylistic elements that are reminiscent of Asian cinema and especially the "heroic bloodshed" films from Hong Kong, since these scenes are stylistic and a little exaggerated, in a way that they transcend realism. I'd say that the movie is a combination of influences and not easy to categorize, because it's not even an action movie.
FP : I think the movie in its core is social drama and that's the category I would put it in.
Yes, it's a rather slow-paced movie, which just has some outbursts of action and blood and an ironic tone, without however been an action movie. Therefore, someone expecting to see a full-action film a-la Hong Kong or a Greek TAKEN, he will probably be disappointed. It is therefore a little misleading to describe the film as a Hong Kong-style film.
AP : The movie played in several festivals and also got several awards.
Yes, it premiered at the Tribeca Festival in New York and later in many other festivals, like London and Karlovy Vary.
FP : What about the ticket sales in Greece?
The tickets were a little over ten thousand, although again I don't have a detailed picture.
AP : What happened with DVD distribution?
After playing at the cinemas here, it was released on DVD and Blu-Ray. It was also played in German cinemas.
AP : Let me allow you a trip down memory lane. At some point in the 90's there was a festival in Technopolis of Athens, where we saw screenings of movies like John Woos's A BULLET IN THE HEAD and Tsui Hark's THE BLADE and you did the introduction for these films. What memories do you have from that time when most people didn't know much about Asian cinema and these were the first steps of opening our eyes to Asian movies, like action films from Hong Kong, Japanese horror movies etc?
We had organized that festival with Aggelos Fratzis. The 90's where the era we grew up cinematically and we discovered those movies. Further back in the 80's, we remembered the movies of Jackie Chan and kung-fu films of course, but the big explosion came in the early 90's. That was when I discovered from video clubs and New Channel the movies of John Woo, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam.
FP : We should also mention that during that time the era of the movies in cinemas was over, because in Greece the first cinema crisis had come and that bang from abroad was something we were just hearing about.
The only way to watch these movies outside Asia was in film festivals and especially those in England, because Hong Kong was until then under British rule. Thanks to the people, the magazines and fanzines in England these movies became famous.
FP : We shouldn't also forget that such movies also played in Chinatown cinemas in England and some English film-hounds were finding them there first.
Yes, they arrived in Greece with some delay and mostly on VHS, but a big part of the 90's I spent it watching not only Hong Kong films but also films from Japan.
AP : Can new platforms like crowd-funding and other options help independent cinema today?
The biggest problems that remain today are those of budget and distribution. And this is a contradiction, because thanks to the advance of digital technology it's easier to make movies today, but it's harder to get the money to make a decent production and it's also difficult to find the target audience to watch your movies or ways for more people to watch your movies.
AP : For your next movie, are you going to look again for funds from abroad or plan a co-production?
This is my goal and actually it's the only way. Here we never had the money or the right conditions to do that and I think we will never have them. I don't think we will see any change soon. There is no prospect in our country to invest seriously in the movie making business. We are a long way from becoming a country like Denmark or even Bulgaria. I'd like to add something here : There was recently a conference which was attended by representatives from film centers in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia. Our Balkan neighbors consider cinema seriously, but in Greece everyone sees movies as pointless fun or as the hobby of some geeks.
AP : What other plans do you have and do they include another movie?
There are several plans and actually we are trying something for next year, which is to close an informal trilogy (along with TALE 52 and WEDNESDAY 04:45), with trapped and alienated heroes who struggle with themselves and their surrounding environment. This time we want to have a female protagonist and her story will be a dark story of revenge.
NOTE: the reviews and interview are translated from Greek. The original material was published in the 41th issue of SHOCK magazine (October 2017).
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